On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Scott Lawton wrote:
Michael Hart typed:
None of these are my views, none written by me, or at my instigation.
???
That's certainly not how it looks from the newsletter. And, independent of who wrote them, someone chose to include many, many items that have nothing to do with PG (and chose particular items that reflect a specific worldview).
If you send something you would like included, it will probably appear. We get lots of these, often several people send in the same piece, or make references to it.
I am not a political person, I am apolitical to the point of anti-political, and I don't have any political agenda, other than to stay pretty much as far away from politics as I can get, as many people are aware.
I'm not sure what you mean by "political", but there sure is an awful lot in the newsletter that would fall under what many (most?) people would call "politics" or "the political realm".
Still, if the word "politics" is a stumbling block, how about "current events that are unrelated to PG". The newsletter has always had far too much of that (IMHO).
Obviously the current situation has a lot more political people in or out of the news, usually it's not quite so thick.
If you don't like something from one of those articles, the URL is usually there, and you are more than encouraged to send letters to the editors, and we will be only too glad to post any such letters that are published, and perhaps even some that haven't been [I'll probably ask our CEO first].
i.e. you're inviting even MORE coverage of politics (er, current events)?
It's pretty much up to our readers, as we tend to include what they talk about, however straight political polemics are not our forte.
We've been quoting Edupage and/or Newsscan for years without any mention from a single one of our readers
That may well be true, though doesn't indicate whether readers would (in general) prefer a PG-specific newsletter vs. the current expanded version.
That's why we have several different newsletters.
Just as one example, I've never spoken out against the newsletter since I'm not willing to edit it and am happy just to ignore it. But, now that the subject has been raised....
I suspect that many people would read a short, focused newsletter that emphasized "what's new" at the top.
If someone would care to create such a newsletter, we would be only too happy to send it out.
I'm pretty skeptical how many people are fans of the tedious stats and other repeition; if they were moved to a separate newsletter, how many would subscribe?
Again, that's why we have tried the various separations. There is no need for anyone to even open the parts they don't want to see. For some the stats and lists are the most important part, you just never know until they email you. mh